


Redux

by TheBlackestFrost



Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: As happy as we can hope for..., F/M, Laura's happy ending, Well - Freeform, spoilers for the novel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:07:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26672641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBlackestFrost/pseuds/TheBlackestFrost
Summary: Laura's ending.
Relationships: Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney
Comments: 7
Kudos: 53





	Redux

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the repost of this one - I deleted previously rather than editing, not helpful.

Laura begins to smile and slowly opens her eyes to her ending.

She thought being impaled might hurt more, but then again she's been running lower and lower for some time now, and sensation was always the first thing to go.

She thinks about the last time she felt, truly felt. Probably in Coq Noir, her dead body coming alive again. Or maybe the next day, when the feeling had not been physical and had been all the worse for it, betrayal and anger and pain.

(Maybe in Cairo, seeing him on the table)

Regardless, she is not feeling much of anything right now, Yggdrasil's branch pushed through her chest by her own hand to take out the god behind her. She does not mind the lack of physical sensation, but she would like some feeling of victory.

After all, it’s not every day you get to kill a god.

Mr World, Loki, whatever, is lifeless, his death a strange draining of power, and while she has not covered herself in Wednesday’s blood, she knows at least she has fucked up is plans.

And if that doesn’t make a girl smile, then what would?

Still, the victory is not without losses. Namely…hers.

“Laura…”

Ahead of her in the cave, Shadow stares.

She thinks she sees sadness there, or peace, or love maybe...maybe that's just what she wants to see. 

She smiles at him and hopes it is a kind smile, and gestures to the rip in the skin of her chest through which her ribcage is visible. She knows that therein there is a glint of gold, and it’s time it found its way somewhere else.

Much like herself.

She reaches down and curls her fingers around the edge of the split flesh, pulling herself apart so that the brilliant golden light inside reflects in his eyes. 

“It’s ok, Shadow. Go on, I’m ready.”

He walks closer, close enough that she would be able to smell him if that sense was still available to her, but instead she can barely make him out through the milky film of her eyes. The well is running dry, and the lack of sensory experience has an oddly dampening effect, like watching a film without the soundtrack.

Distanced and too real, all at once.

“I…,” he struggles to speak and for a moment she thinks of their wedding day, of him looking so handsome in his suit, of the lace of her dress that was just intricate enough to hide tear drops.

Her fingers tighten briefly against the skin she as pulled back, slippering with blood and old gore, the shine inside no less dull for the surrounding ugliness.

She can see countless things on his tongue and wonders if this is some special new skill, the ability to see what he wants to say, but deep down she knows it’s not. Knows she had spent enough of her life, her actual life, spent trying to be what he thought he wanted her to be, doing them both a disservice in the process. Knows he wants to apologise for so readily taking her at her word, because a melancholy beauty with a little bit of fire is a far lovelier creature than a selfish, lost girl with venom on her tongue and pain at her fingertips. Knows he wants to erase some of her flaws from his memory still and keep her like an edited version in his mind, one that did not let him take the fall for their crime, one that didn’t fuck someone else’s husband while Shadow was in prison, one that didn’t turn into an animated corpse that found…

She stops herself, unwilling to pursue that thought any further, and thinks perhaps she has a tiny bit of feeling left after all.

She pushes it aside.

She doesn’t want Shadow to apologise; she knows what she was, she knows what he was, and somewhere between the two of them there is enough guilt and blame and laughter to leave this behind without belabouring the point.

“I know, puppy. Me too.”

They share a look and for a moment they give one another grace for being two kids, two humans, who were trying something and failing, but were then caught up in schemes of gods and deities before any lessons could be learned.

Shadow reaches forward to pluck the coin from her chest and she has a split second to see the universe laid bare before she is once again on a twilight blanketed mountain standing in front of a calm God of Death.

With a little more experience under her belt she thinks perhaps this could be more of a transition, but then again she’s not sure what the point of that would be. You are one, and then you are the other, and perhaps there is not true slow death or in between, just the moment winking out of one existence and arriving at another.

Anubis is not unkind nor kind; he just is.

She smiles.

“Miss me?”

He says nothing, and she thinks perhaps that’s fair. Instead she looks around, searching for familiarity.

The blanket and the scales are there, and she sighs, stepping forward without needing to be asked.

When he tears out her heart she studies it, so red here, glistening as if alive, as if it could never _not_ be beating, too powerful a muscle not to be going and going and going.

His silence as he places her heart on the scales is deafening.

Perhaps her sacrifice lightened her somewhat, but they both know this is a farce, and she’s not one to let it rest easily. She doesn’t mind, not really, not when she discovered more in her last few weeks than she really had in life.

Not when she had found her part in everything, only to realise she had been reading the wrong lines in the script.

Her destiny was never a beam of golden, stunning light.

It was her dark, her mess, her melancholy, her cruelty…and perhaps more. Perhaps there was some shattered kindness in there, or an intense sort of love that was often poorly executed but no less genuine for it.

Still…it was no feather.

"So...where's my hot tub?"

He shakes his head and for the first time since dying (again) she is surprised. The hot tub is nowhere to be seen, no can of bug spray awaits, and Anubis stands slowly, as if new knowledge is taking a moment to sink in.

There is nothing and then there is a door.

It's the colour of a wood at the first flush of autumn, bark and green leaves, a she thinks she sees a hint of gold, flashing and gone in an instant. It looks mismatched and foul and flawlessly drawn together and makes her feel ill.

It’s hers. She knows that immediately, knows it like a pull in her chest and a fly around her head and a tingling across her skin.

She looks back to him curiously, and his tone is indifferent.

“Your ending has changed.”

She grits her teeth.

“Why?”

"This time you believed in something." 

She wants to laugh at that but there is no lie in his words, no annoyance. It's a statement, plain and unadorned, and she feels the sound die in her throat and something akin to panic begin to bubble up.

She had been expecting nothing.

But this…is something.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Anubis has little interest in indulging her, simply gestures again to the door.

Something has settled in her gut, small and ill formed, an inconsequential annoyance just under her skin.

She swallows thickly.

"How do I...” She stops, centres herself, tries to figure out what will be most useful. “Where does it lead?"

Anubis shrugs and says nothing further.

She stares at the closed door and lets her mind wander, lets that feeling in her gut begin to grow.

She imagines…

_The door opens to a sticky bar scented with sweat and spilled drinks, a giant alligator head the novelty centre piece._

She steps closer.

The feeling in her gut is a bud piercing through fresh dirt.

_The door opens to a forest full of trees and bird song, the rich smells of brown earth, a hint of peat, the tang of salt in the air. A memory that isn’t hers but one she would not mind having shared._

Another step and she can make out the gleam of the door handle that slowly appears, rusted gold or dull metal depending on the light.

The feeling in her gut grows, reaching out towards the sun.

_The door opens to a motel room where she sits on the bed, staring at the door begging to be kicked open._

She can see them now, threads of gold in amongst the old wood, rotten in some parts but held together by those gleaming strands.

The feeling in her gut grows taller, stretching past her ribcage and into her sternum.

_The door opens to another bar, this one decked in fairy lights and warm wood, heat in the air and the scent of spice and rum._

Another step and she can smell the water log at the bottom of the door, like it’s wood that has been rescued from the sea, like it was never really meant to come together but here are the threads and the handle and it’s a door, really and truly.

The feeling in her gut unfurls, stretching out leaves and petals of a thousand different colours as it moves up through her ribcage and settles against the space where her heart once beat.

_The door opens to a vaccum of space and mess, golden coins and memories swirling around her, the feeling of arms holding her tightly against a denim covered chest that smells like tobacco, shame, and anticipation._

The door opens and opens and opens and she does not step through so much as suddenly finds it closed behind her, realising she has moved without moving.

The feeling in her gut, in her chest, in her being, is hope and that hope is in full and wild bloom.

For a moment she is still as she splinters between places and spaces, unsure of where or why, but that hope has brought something out into the open.

Something that is warmed by fairy lights and the strangeness of adventure, something that enjoys the chill of the forest and the scent of rum and cigar smoke.

Something that saw magic and monsters and itself, sharp and cruel and kind and fierce and full of love so brittle it could cut edges before it was recognised.

Laura is here and she knows who she is.

She closes her eyes and exhales.

The universe gives her a moment to adjust because perhaps it is all too much, but Laura has never been one for patience, and death has done little to change this aspect of her being.

Besides, the air has shifted around her, and she knows she is not alone.

"Hi."

It’s voice made of madness and memories and smoke and sweat and whisky and adventure.

It’s a voice made of magic and engine oil and graveyard dirt and promises.

It’s a voice laced with annoyance and snarl and awkwardness and a little bit of hope.

It’s cobbled together and far away and here.

Laura begins to smile and slowly opens her eyes to her ending.

_Fin_


End file.
